Software company

They are evil because they produce closed source offline software used by millions: Microsoft Windows.

And also their monopolistic practices: United States v. Microsoft Corp.

So, as put in Video "Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs by Epic Rap Battles of History (2012)" by fake Steve Jobs to fake Bill Gates:

Why'd you name your company after your dick?

However, like all big tech companies with infinite money, they do end up doing some cool things in their research department, Microsoft Research, notably for Ciro Santilli being:

A monopolistic operating system that only exists in the 2010's because of the IBM-linked historical lock-in and constant useless changes of the Microsoft Word document format to prevent cross operability.

It offers no technical advantages over free Linux distros in the late 2010's, and it is barely impossible to buy a non-Mac computer without paying for it, which should be illegal. European Union, time to use your regulatory powers.

The following anecdote illustrates Windows' pervasiveness. Ciro Santilli was once tutoring a high school student in Brazil, and decided to try and get her into programming. When the "Windows is not free" subject came up, the high school student was shocked: "I paid 100 dollars for this?". She never even knew it was there. To her, it was "just a computer".

Laws should really be passed forcing OEMs to allow you to not buy Microsoft Windows when buying a computer, European Union, why have you failed me in 2016??? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows

blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to-the-windows-kernel-we-are-slower-than-other-oper/ I Contribute to the Windows Kernel. We Are Slower Than Other Operating Systems. Here Is Why. by Marc Bevand (2013) has some interesting remarks:

There's also little incentive to create changes in the first place. On linux-kernel, if you improve the performance of directory traversal by a consistent 5%, you're praised and thanked. Here, if you do that and you're not on the object manager team, then even if you do get your code past the Ob owners and into the tree, your own management doesn't care. Yes, making a massive improvement will get you noticed by senior people and could be a boon for your career, but the improvement has to be very large to attract that kind of attention.

Even added UI app support as of 2022: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/gui-apps That's awesome!

The enemy?

You must watch this: Video "Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs by Epic Rap Battles of History (2012)".

It does not matter how many trillions you donate to charity, Bill. If you want to prove your point, make MS Word free and open source and port it to Linux. And then Window implements POSIX-compatible APIs and then deprecate non-POSIX APIs.

quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/26/lazy-job/ (archive):

I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.

See also: effortless effort.

Evil company that desecrated the beauty created by Sun Microsystems, and was trying to bury Java once and or all in the 2010's.

Their database is already matched by open source e.g. PostgreSQL, and ERP and CRM specific systems are boring.

Oracle basically grew out of selling one of the first SQL implementations in the late 70's, and notably to the United States Government and particularly the CIA. They did deliver a lot of value in those early pre-internet days, but now open source is and will supplant them entirely.

Although Ciro Santilli is a bit past their era, there's an aura of technical excellence about those people. It just seems that they sucked at business. Those open source hippies. Erm, wait.

Bibliography:

Video "1984 Macintosh advertisement by Apple (1984)" comes to mind.

TODO year. This was a reply to Microsoft anti-Linux propaganda it seems: www.ubuntubuzz.com/2012/03/truth-happens-redhats-legendary-reply.html

Trascript from: www.dailymotion.com/video/xw3ws

The world is flat. Earth is the centre of the universe. Fact - until proven otherwise.
Despite ignorance. Despite ridicule. Despite opposition. Truth happens.

Despite ignorance.
The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. /Western Union 1876/
In 1899 the US Patent Commissioner stated, everything that can be invented has been invented.

Despite ridicule.
The phonograph has no commercial value at all. /Thomas Edison 1880/
The radio craze will die out in time. /Thomas Edison 1922/
The automobile has practically reached the limit of its development. /Scientific American 1909/

Despite it all truth happens.
Man will not fly for fifty years. /Orville Wright 1901/
The rocket will never leave the Earth's atomosphere. /New York Times 1936/
There is a world market for maybe five computers. /IBM's Thomas Watson 1943/
640K Ought to be enough for anybody. /Bill Gates 1981/

First they ignore you...
Linux is the hype du jour. /Gartner Group 1999/

Then they laugh at you...
We think of linux as competitor in the student and hobbyist market. But I really don't think in the commercial market we'll see it in any significant way. /Bill Gates 2001/

Then they fight you...
Linux isn't going away. Linux is a serious competitor. We will rise to this challenge. /Steve Ballmer 2003/

Then you win... /Mohandas Gandhi/

You are here.
Red Hat Linux. IBM.